Wheel of Time: Age of Might 1
by Baddie Deya
Summary: Long before the coming of the Dragon Reborn, the world is a very different place. And yet things are much the same. Age of Might is a series designed to explore the age of the 10 nations through various eyes.


300 years after the Breaking of the World, in Coratheren, an Ogier-built city in the kingdom of Manetheren…

How her mother managed to divine Ashantra's every move ahead of time, Rianna had utterly no idea. It wasn't the Power, she was sure of that. With the exception of her poor brother – dragged off to the Tower not long after her little sister had started forming coherent sentences - none of her immediate family had been born with the ability to channel enough to light a candle.

Nine years her senior, no one talked about him. It was an unspoken tradition in most lands to pretend that your male kin had never existed in the first place if they were found to have been born with the spark, or if they learned to grasp Saidin for some crackbrained reason; after reporting them to the nearest Servant one could find, that is. He fell into the former category, but she could still remember the look on his face, that flat already dead blankness in his eyes, the one time that she had seen him, a half a year after he'd been severed. Just remembering made her shudder, and wonder how many other men had been taken away because of an accident of their birth. Likely it was beyond counting.

Every few years some fool popped up claiming that the taint simply _had _to be over and done with by now, and it never was; how the men who hadn't been born with the Spark learned to grasp Saidin was an open question that no one seemed to have an answer to. The Servants of All supposedly worked tirelessly to find some way to cleanse the Taint, or of allowing men to channel and survive it with mind and body intact. The Red Ajah made that claim most of all, and most strongly according to her aunt; but thus far if there had been the slightest change, no one had ever heard of it.

Rianna had tried to defy the tradition… once, haring off to Tar Valon, and actually getting there before her retainers had caught up to her. She'd just wanted to see her big brother again… the man she'd remembered had always had a smile and a laugh for her; and had mussed her hair simply to get a reaction. It would have been better to simply let him go and remember him that way instead of how he'd been when she saw him. Her mother's reaction to the then eight-year-old Rianna's actions was the first of several reasons why she never challenged the woman.

Not that her father's reaction had been any tamer.

And so Rianna, affronted but compliant, paced before the _domestics' entrance_ on the northeastern terrace, like some sort of common guard waiting for a delivery boy that she thought unlikely to appear. At least she got to look at the stars and the moon, only obstructed here and there by a thin wisp of cloud. She didn't get to do that nearly as often as she would prefer. One time, in her youth she'd made the mistake of wondering aloud what life among the sea folk, able to see those wondrous lights in the sky near every night would be like. Her mother's reaction to that was another reason. Chastising herself for allowing her mind to wander, she returned her attention back to the matter at hand.

The boy was running late, if he was even coming. Perhaps he was watching her even now and waiting for her to move off from her post? She giggled at that. Ashantra would likely have left such orders with the seamstress. Her sister, though currently handicapped by their mother, was quite the clever little thing. Lady Atari might just get more than she bargained for if she convinced her younger daughter to learn to play the Game like a good little noblewoman.

It occurred to her that she herself had quite the reputation as the flaky, flighty little fop whenever people thought her out of earshot. Her mother might even believe her if she claimed to have gotten bored or that the boy had never shown up, though she would certainly discount the second if Ashantra finally managed to get a new supply of 'tomboy' clothes into her wardrobe. Perhaps he was even now circling around and making for another entrance? Her mother had foreseen that. She didn't trust the common guards and other domestics to obey her word over Ashantra's, not fully, especially after a few whispers of sympathy for Lady Ashantra has started popping up. And she only had one minion… Rianna hated it, but that's what she was. As such, Lady Atari had ordered all but one such entrance barred at sunset, the guards moved inside and instructed to make no reaction to anything short of a battering ram.

She bit her lip as she wondered – not for the first time – if they were really in the right the way that they treated her little sister. No, she didn't wonder, she _knew_ it was wrong. She was simply powerless to change it. They were telling, no forcing, a grown woman how to dress, taking great pains to deny her sovereign right to simply leave when she had committed absolutely no crime… that they knew of, anyway. That Ashantra had been associated with the Thieves' Guild when she was out slumming was almost certain, though thankfully it had never been proven that she'd participated in one of their 'jobs.'

She could tell that her sister was suffering, and wanted nothing more than to leave her post and just let the damned boy bring her a load of clothing that she'd rightfully paid for; even if how she'd managed it escaped both her and their mother. It hurt her to treat her sister as a prisoner in their family home. It hurt her more that she couldn't muster up the willpower to say no, or even just… give her sister a hug when she knew how badly their mother's methods hurt. She'd gone through something similar after all, if for different reasons, and understood what it felt like. That Ashantra had managed to hold against their mother's will for this long both surprised Rianna, and made her envious of the younger woman's strength. Ashantra was stirring long dormant embers of defiance in Rianna, though she wasn't prepared to let the flame catch. She'd learned far quicker than Ashantra had that their mother wasn't to be disobeyed.

And so Rianna did as she was bid, and smiled simpering smiles at men in whom she had absolutely no interest, to entice them into accepting deals with not-promises of intimacies whose very thought disgusted her. She'd never actually gone through with such a despicable act, but her mother required her to make her suitors believe that the offer was genuine, when it wasn't even there, playing on her good looks.

It wasn't that Ashantra was unattractive. Quite the opposite and many in court agreed… but Atari had launched repeated attacks on Ashantra's resistance through snide little remarks that were designed to incite her belief that she was as unappealing as a woman could be, though she might be redeemable if she would listen to her mother's 'advice.' But the truth was that Ashantra's charms, while more subtle than Rianna's, were far more engaging… if one could overlook her manner.

She was nearly as disgusted with the pretense as Ashantra always declared she was, and with the blackmail that her own mother was subjecting her to, as she was with the thought of finally being trapped into delivering on one of her not-promises. She just couldn't decide which was the most revolting.

On a hunch, she tossed up her hands and overdid her sigh of boredom and started back into the Palace. She turned the first corner from the entrance, stopped, and counted slowly to twenty; before turning around and coming back outside. A nondescript boy was standing in front of the entrance, and was just opening his mouth to speak to the guard.

"Good evening!" she said brightly to him, putting on one of those false, simpering smiles she hated wearing. She always wondered how anyone could miss her eyes watering when she wore that smile, but thus far no one had called her bluff. "Are you perchance coming from Mistress Edina's tailor?"

"Um, yes, actually," the boy said as he froze at her greeting, clutching the two parcels – one much bigger than the other – protectively. "I've been given rather explicit instructions, milady…" Even complete strangers knew her a noblewoman the moment she said anything, even if it was a simple 'hello.' It made her wonder how Ashantra had passed herself off as a commoner for so long; for they had both had the same teachers, education, accent, and speech patterns. "…so I really must beg your pardon, but I have business to be about."

"Oh, but I am the one who paid for the dress… the smaller parcel," she told him just as brightly, producing her coin pouch that she carried safely nestled between her breasts – absolutely no one had a chance of reaching it _there _without her realizing it - and withdrawing the usual delivery fee.

"Well, I do know you're supposed to get that one, Lady Rianna; but I've been told that the rest is to be given only to the Lady Ashantra."

"She is my sister, silly boy," Rianna protested with a lilting giggle and a dismissive wave of her hand. Were it not for the half a dozen nursemaids, handmaidens and two midwifes who swore Ashantra to be the same babe that came from Atari's womb, she might very well doubt that claim, so different were they in looks and personality.

"Be that as it may, milady. I have a contract with my employer, and she has a contract with Lady Ashantra. I can only yield this delivery after I've spoken directly to Her Ladyship, without it being opened or leaving my hand. As I said, my instructions are rather particular, and one clause states that I may not allow the Ladies Rianna or Atari to touch the package or – and in that the word 'or' is strongly stressed -its contents, and the same is true for anyone acting on one or both's orders. No one short of Her Majesty, or a Servant can legally force me to do otherwise."

"Oh? And have you read that contract?" Rianna pressed, changing tactics on a gamble since most commoners couldn't read. The days before the Time of Madness had been different, so the stories told; but the Taint and the Breaking had changed much. Queen Sorella ay Marena Aes Sedai was trying to put that back to rights by instituting something called 'schools' which would give everyone such skills, but opposition was stymying her efforts in that direction.

"No milady, I can't read. But Mistress Edina read it off to me and made me memorize it."

"Then how do you know that she was being in earnest?" Rianna continued her attack. "Why, that paper she read off of may have been her shopping list for all you could tell."

"I was warned to expect this tactic Milady Rianna. It won't work. Even if that were the case, I'd not soon risk breaking a bond that would draw Her Majesty's eye, fictional contract or no. If you'll excuse me…" the boy countered, trying to step around her.

She stepped quickly with him, blocking the entrance again, and had to gesture the sentry down when she heard him start at the perceived threat against her. "I'm afraid that I can't allow you into the palace," she told him. "My mother has ordered that all couriers and delivery agents be stopped at…"

She trailed off as he fished a piece of paper out from between the two parcels he carried and handed it over. It was an order from Ashantra to stand down and conduct the bearer directly to her chambers, their burdens untouched by any hand, and a treat of discharge – which really should have been within her authority, but wasn't – if that order was disobeyed. A common guard would likely have just brought the boy up.

"Unfortunately my sister's order cannot countermand or bypass my mother's," Rianna said, quite truthfully, not returning the scrap of paper but instead tucking it down the front of her dress. Best not to let him keep that in case he managed to sneak back later. "As I was saying, my mother has ordered that all deliveries to my sister must be personally checked and approved by her."

"Fine," the boy said, handing over the top, much smaller parcel, took the money and turning to leave. "Be that the case, I've been instructed to withdraw. But never worry… my employer will take this up before the Queen herself if she has to. A sea-folk merchant captain would break contract before she would. Good evening, _milady_."

She almost kicked the boy – she might have, before her mother had tamed her – for the derogatory tone he put into her honorific. As it was, she just sent an icy, haughty stare at his retreating back, and hurried inside as soon as he was gone. She didn't go directly to Ashantra's rooms. Rather, she went to one of the first floor fitting rooms to have the silk smoothed out.

Her mother was there, lounging and reading as a maid anxiously awaited the task she'd been called down for. Atari sur'Ladina sur'Maritha was a stately, greying woman slightly shorter than Rianna and had grown rather plump – though she was yet far from obese – in the early part of her elder years. She had large, round dark eyes, a slightly hooked nose that was just a little too wide perched above thin lips and a small, almost pointed chin. Rianna just handed the package to the domestic and turned to her mother, trying to muster her nerve.

"Good evening again, daughter," her mother said before she could will herself to speak. "Have you been successful?"

"Partly, mother," Rianna replied, slipping into her subservient role without thinking. Light how she _hated_ when that happened. "The boy delivered the dress, but refused to deliver the other garments into any hand save Ashantra's."

"No matter," her mother said dismissively as she peeked over the edge of the book at the dress that was being prepared for the younger woman. "At least you've managed to drive him off. Soon enough she'll grow up and forget all about this man-foolish sword talk and behave as she should."

"Mother…" Rianna began, not exactly sure what she wished to say.

"Yes, daughter?" the woman replied as she went back to her reading.

"Can't you… at least…"

"At least what?" Atari demanded, snapping her book shut and standing up so quickly that Rianna took a step back. "I cannot, and will not, countenance any action which will leave my precious baby girl – your little sister - laying bleeding to death on some battlefield like a common soldier; bleeding to death, drowning in a pool of her own blood even as she's pecked at by the carrion! I would sooner slit my own throat _and _wrists. Perhaps you mean to try and intercede on her behalf _again_? I would have thought you'd learned your lesson by now. Remember what will happen if your defiance leads to your sister's grave, Rianna."

"Do you think that I do not care for my sister's life as well, mother?" Rianna asked, quiet anger bubbling beneath the surface. "Do you think I do not care for her suffering? I know better than to voice or even think such thoughts of you, and I would thank you for the same recognition."

If her mother was the slightest bit taken aback by either tone or phrase, she didn't show it, as usual. Rianna's verbal attacks never had any effect on the woman that she could detect. "I know better than to think such things of you as well, daughter. Thank you for your own recognition," she replied dismissively. "This suffering you speak of is naught more than growing pains. Once she sets aside this fool notion and accepts the role that has been prepared for her, she will enjoy life again. She will smile again."

"Two years mother," Rianna reminded Atari. "In two years she has only smiled for our father, and then, only when she wasn't quarreling with him. And even he seems to have lost the ability to draw one from her of late. I think you misconstrue…"

"It is a childish whim, nothing more!" Atari snapped. "You know better than to contradict me before your sister or your father. My lenience for backtalk in private, while greater, is still limited. If she would just stop trying to wear men's clothes – especially _poor_ men's clothes - forget this swordswoman folly, and behave as a Lady should, then everything would be right. This is… tough love, Rianna. Or do you doubt that I love you and your sister?"

It was rather difficult to believe that a woman loved someone when she was blackmailing them, and had been for years. And even more so for the cruel mind games she'd been playing on Ashantra.

"Excuse me, my ladies, but the dress is ready for presentation," the maid said with an appropriate curtsey when Rianna didn't reply with anything more than a sullen glare; two curtsies, actually: one for the apology and one for the information.

"Thank you, that will be all," Atari dismissed the domestic. Likely the older woman had forgotten she was there until she spoke, so intent on Rianna was she.

That was just as Rianna had wished.

People, even domestics, have ears, and tongues; well, most had both, anyway, and all of the retainers their family employed did. It was a small fact that nobles such as her mother frequently overlooked. That attitude of 'if they're not noble they're not worth notice' was as appalling to her as it was to her sister.

Rianna knew Ashantra's deservedly low opinion of her full well, and hoped that she'd hear a rumor that she'd at least tried to stand up for her. It was far from the first time that she'd tried that tactic, never with any visible success; she only hoped that if it happened often enough Ashantra would take notice. But what she was about to do would likely cause the younger woman to dismiss it once again as tongues wagging merely to hear their own voices.

"Hold," Rianna bade the girl. "Would you be so kind as to bear the garment to my sister? I'm afraid my presence is…"

"No," Atari cut in. "You do it, Rianna." When she saw her daughter's face, she added, "I will brook no argument, daughter. You will bear it to your sister."

"Yes… yes mother," Rianna acceded helplessly.

What Atari and Ashantra didn't know, because it was too great a risk for either of them to hear of it, was that their father hadn't simply fled to their greatmother's to escape the battle that had been brewing over the last few weeks. He'd gone to beseech his much older sister, the Queen, to gain _her_ considerable support for Ashantra's case. It had been risk enough telling Rianna when she'd gone to him and begged him to intercede on Ashantra's behalf.

Her aunt would never issue an order to harm her second-sister. There would be no warrant of arrest, unless Rianna vastly misjudged her aunt. And she could no more order the woman to relax her grip on her daughter than she could assign some other woman to raise Ashantra. After all, Ashantra _was_ a grown woman.

By that same token, there were laws in place governing the reasons for which a citizen of Manetheren could be detained. A criminal charge was required to be presented to the accused within a day of the arrest, and filed with the clerk in the city they were being held in while a copy was forwarded to the capital, and Tar Valon. Then there was a requisite session in court within one year, overseen by a member of the Blue Ajah if at all possible… Ashantra had had none of that. Atari had been illegally imprisoning a citizen of Manetheren, and _that_ the Queen most certainly _could _do something about. Given that Rianna knew her aunt's highest belief was in free will, she didn't doubt that Queen Sorella _would_ take whatever steps she needed to when it came to ensuring an innocent individual's freedom, let alone her 'favorite' niece.

Both Rianna and her father were hoping it didn't come to that. They wanted peace, harmony and reason to return, almost as much as Rianna wanted to hear her sister laugh again, and see her smile. Another woman's – especially blood-kin's – voice added to Ashantra's defense might very well tip the balance.

And besides which, it was always a bad idea to argue with or simply ignore a Servant, let alone one who sat on the throne to which you knelt.

_Hold tight, sister,_ Rianna silently willed to Ashantra as she fought down another stab of guilt. _Help is coming_. _And then, you and I will talk, without masks._

Gathering up the folds of silk that almost precisely matched her own dress, Rianna excused herself from her mother's presence, and steeled herself for what she hoped was the last time she had to wear her appalling mask for her little sister.

She knew what she was about to do would drive another spike of pain into her sibling's heart, and likely further widen the already intolerable gap between them. She hated that gap perhaps more than anything else in the situation. Her only hope was that after their aunt had finished with Atari, Ashantra would listen to her explanation and accept her apology. Surely she would understand… she could not afford to share this secret with just anyone, let alone have _everyone _be aware of it.

But then again, Ashantra _hated_ secrets, and masks. Despite the fact that she'd been born into The Only Game Worth Playing, she detested liars and phonies and pretenders, preferring honesty and trust, and she was usually able to figure out who was worthy of her trust.

[-]

Ashantra stood on the balcony to her private suite, leaning against the doorway leading back into her apartments. The palace, her home – her prison - was built on the highest point of the city, and her apartments were high up on one of the great spires, affording her a spectacular moonlit view of the city. Its graceful Ogier architecture was truly something to behold. Usually standing out on the balcony, even if it was just this side of the doorway, made her breathe a little easier, her dreams come a little more vividly.

But she was suffocating, her dreams fading over the course of the last few years as her mother relentlessly and mercilessly tried to smother her spirit. The trouble had _really _started when Atari had learned that her daughter had publicly announced intentions of taking up the sword against the Dark One; that's when she'd been caged and the mind games had begun.

In the two years before that, she'd only been watched constantly and prevented from leaving the palace unattended after a near-incident involving her and her then-boyfriend. And in the four years before _that_ she'd been truly free, slipping over a single-pace of palace wall that had somehow escaped the guards' notice to go out among her people and see them for herself. Some of what she'd seen without her guards and escorts censoring it shocked her at first, but she'd gotten over that quickly.

Ashantra found the 'little people' – as her mother called those who weren't courtiers - to be far more real, more honest and open than anyone she'd met in court. Sure, they pretended, and lied, just as every other man and woman in the world did. But a greater percentage of them did so more oft than not out of consideration instead of ambition. The most straightforward courtier she'd met could out-act the greatest thespian that she'd ever seen preform.

The thought of nobles teaching actors how to ply their trade should have made her giggle, but she didn't even feel a ghost of a smile when it occurred to her.

It had been almost four years since that miniscule hole in the palace's security she'd so enjoyed had been plugged. And ever since then her company was limited to her family, their retainers; and bragging, blustering blowhard pretenders suing for her hand. Oftentimes she didn't even know she was courting someone until just before she was introduced to the man her mother had so carefully selected for her. Maybe she disliked those suitors simply for the fact that she'd had no say in the matter; but whatever the reason, it never lasted very long. Her mother didn't understand her taste in men at all.

There was exactly one that her father had lined up for her, and if she'd been consulted about it beforehand she may actually have been able to like that one. As usual her father understood her where her mother didn't. Most likely, the woman was deliberately picking the most docile dolts she could find, so that they wouldn't 'mistreat her precious daughter;' while he had worked to find one they both would approve of. Ashantra liked strong men, taller than she was with good muscles, an even temper, a working brain, some kind of actual skill beyond just talking… someone that _wouldn't_ just smile and nod at everything she said, or flat-out ignore her when he thought she was wrong.

But most of all, she wanted a say in who she was going to see, marry, and get impregnated by.

She couldn't help but smile, even if it was a bitter parody of her old smile, at the memory of some of the more creative things she'd done to convince those 'gentlemen' to let her alone and forget whatever deal they'd struck with her parents. They weren't even interested in _her_ for the Light's sake. They just wanted a means of getting closer to her father's title, power and position, perhaps find some chink in his political armor, or exploit the rise in status that would come from wedding a Manetheri Count's daughter. In other words, they wanted to use her, and she knew it. And she hated them for it. She hated being used, and the very thought of using other people. She would _never_ let herself be some sort of… prize or trophy or the like.

Women, especially noblewomen, 'weren't suited' to the life of a blademaster. No one out and said that, except her mother, and even she only said so in private. But only a few thought differently. Why in the world should her sex put limitations on her chosen profession? She'd thought that her aunt had approved of her calling… but not one word, not one letter had come from her since that announcement, let alone a visit or an invitation as she had once made so routinely. Likely her mother had a string of excuses for her 'wayward daughter's' inaccessibility, and was preventing letters from her Aunt Sorella from getting to her. She _had_ to believe that. The possibility of her aunt just showing up one day and springing her from her cage was one of the only embers of hope she had left and even that was fading.

The simple fact that she was twenty-two years old in a much younger woman's – a girl's really - body didn't much help her position, and dampened whatever influence she managed to gain considerably. Ashantra was, in her own opinion, as well as that of most anyone who thought she wasn't in earshot, unusually square for a woman. Her curves were there, but they were more subtle, far less pronounced, than in her mother's or her elder sister's bodies. Her chest was small, her rear flat, and her hips only just barely possessed a woman's curve. She hadn't always thought that way… When had she started? There was so much she wasn't even sure of anymore, even about herself. Then the fact that she deliberately kept her ebony hair indecently short had sometimes made her be mistaken for a boy. Rianna was the polar opposite. No one ever thought _her_ anything but a grown woman; and _every_ man enjoyed looking at her.

Most of what she'd said between four and two years ago was given the same reaction as a six year old grasping basic mathematics, the court equivalent of a pat on the head. And then they ignored her. What she wouldn't give for Rianna's figure. _Everyone_ listened to her elder sister. _Everyone_ always thought her ideas were pure gold, even though a fair number of them were – word for word – copies of what Ashantra had been ignored about. If only those simpering suitors knew how they were wasting their time… Ashantra had been paying attention; she knew all about her sister's tastes when it came to 'intimate company.' She'd even briefly, in a moment of desperation, considered using that knowledge to coerce her into helping. But she was no blackmailer; and despite everything, she loved her sister too much to do that to her.

Ashantra was stuffed into fancy dresses at every turn, always finding her breeches and coats missing – her mother had had them shredded the last time she'd managed to recover them - and replaced with shifts and gowns to make a farmwife weep with envy. She'd long since given up on donating those pretty dresses to those random farmwives and tavern girls when they'd reappeared in her closet for the twelfth time, and the maids all playing dumb about how they'd gotten there when she'd ordered them somewhere else, or pretending that she'd never given the command in the first place; as if she was stupid enough to believe she'd only imagined doing so. That was just insulting. She'd considered, on occasion, cutting the gowns up, but even she wasn't so rebellious as to run around in naught but her shift or her skin.

Ashantra let out a growl that released some of her deep-seated vexation. Teetering on the edge of madness as she was, it was getting progressively harder to rein her temper in. The fresh air, though cool in mid-spring, was doing nothing for her mindset. She just couldn't take much more of this… this _torture_. That's what it was, even if it was done politely, barring some outright cruel words, and without chains and pincers and hooks and such. The pretense was nearly as nauseating to her as the attempts at molding her against her will and her nature were.

Turning back to her bedroom was no comfort at all. In fact, it increased her anxiety and stress. All this luxury, though tasteful, meant absolutely nothing to her. Her bed was silk sheets and matching quilts atop a feather-down mattress laying in a massive four-poster frame. Her vanity was large, and heavy, and difficult to move, with drawers holding everything a more typical woman of her station would need to maintain her appearance, all the finest to be had; and the navy blue – her favorite color - carpets were imported all the way from Tear, with a maze pattern in thread-of-gold inlaid. Two doors were hung in arching doorways opening to the interior. One led to her study, and the spire corridor beyond. The other led to her dressing chamber, and her bathing chamber beyond that.

There were paintings perfectly hung on the walls. Skillfully rendered pastoral scenes made from colored oils contained in gilded frames. She disliked them all, not for their content, but for the fact that they'd been forced down her throat. But literally every flat surface in her bedchamber was home to one of the few things in her life that she did like: her collection of animal dolls. Stuffed with wadded wool and only vaguely approximating the shape of the animals they represented, her father had given her between one and five each year until she'd come of age, and she treasured each. It was one of the last aspects of her childhood she hadn't willed herself to outgrow yet.

She'd barely taken a step back inside, intending to at least try and escape into the oblivion of sleep, though she would normally not retire for hours yet, when her elder sister swept into the room from her study, wearing a splendid red silk dress with slashes of varying complimentary colors across her bodice, all the rage among Manetheri noblewomen that year. Rianna always had the height of fashion for her wardrobe, and every aspect of her appearance, really. Even her auburn hair, which fell to her waist when undone, was fashioned in the latest craze: an overly-intricate bun that rested deliberately off-center on her scalp. It was a bloody waste of time, in Ashantra's estimation.

_How can the woman stand having that much hair?_ Ashantra wondered, far from the first time. Ashantra herself couldn't tolerate letting hers grow out longer than her wrist was from her fingertip. She had once kept it about her mid-back, trying to grow it out that long, and remembered full well the sheer amount of time it had taken her to 'properly' wash and brush it each day. She was truly baffled by the fact that her sister could find time to do anything other than care for hers.

"Good evening, little sister," Rianna said cheerfully, laying a dress identical to her own – save that it was obviously tailored to fit Ashantra's body - out on the bed. "I've just come from the seamstress-"

"And has she finished with those breeches and coats that I ordered from her?" Ashantra cut in, already knowing the answer. Even if she had, her mother would have found some way of preventing Ashantra from ever seeing one thread of those 'tomboy' clothes. But she would have the last laugh this time. No matter what Atari did, short of executing Madame Edina, that contract's failure would draw the Queen's eye.

Why didn't that make her feel any better?

"Oh, silly girl," Rianna replied, fussing with the dress longer than necessary before waving her hand dismissively. There was a twinge in her voice and her eye that Ashantra had never been able to quite place whenever this happened. Surely it couldn't be guilt. Rianna was their mother's lackey from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head. Ashantra had to exert real effort not to just openly call her a bitch, and that impulse was growing more powerful and frequent as well. "You're a young Lady, a woman of the high Court of Coratheren, twenty-ninth in line for the throne of Manetheren. You shouldn't be-"

"I'm six years past old enough to choose for myself what I should and shouldn't be doing or wearing, Rianna," Ashantra interrupted quietly, feeling particularly rebellious as she placed a disparaging tone on her sister's name. The older woman noticed and compressed her lips into a thin line, a flash of something resembling hurt in her eye. But Ashantra pressed on before she could reply. "I'll _never _don the crown, even if Auntie was willing to hand it off to a woman who wasn't a Servant."

It was the old argument, bubbling up again, as it always did when one or both of them - her mother or sister - invariably attempted to convince her to repent her 'wild ways' and behave as _they_ thought she should. Rianna _always_ took their mother's side, trying to convince Ashantra to be primmer, more proper, and more ladylike. She couldn't recall one time; not one time in the last ten years when her sister had ever supported her position on anything that contradicted their mother in the slightest, though she'd often done as much for Rianna. That thought always saddened her, as it did then, even as she dug her heels in, which she always did.

Their father, unusually wise for a man, refused to take one side or the other with three women he loved arguing so heatedly, and disappeared faster than a rat sighting a cat when they started. After the last yelling match began he'd run off to visit his second-mother – Ashantra's mother's mother - on the pretext of 'official business' rather than stick around for the fireworks. He wasn't due back for another week so far as she knew. That her aunt _and _her father had abandoned her to that pair of wolves was almost enough to break her heart in and of itself.

"This _again_, Ashantra?" Rianna asked with an exasperated tone, glaring at the younger woman and folding her arms under her ample cleavage. Light burn her, why did she have to have _all_ the best attributes between them? And why did she _always_ have to use body language like that to _brag_ about it? "You're not too big yet to be turned over Elsa's knee, you know."

Threatening to send her – a grown woman - to be spanked by their old nanny really was the last straw. Picking up the dress, she wadded it up and threw it at her sister across the bed, who looked as surprised as Ashantra felt at her catching it. "Take that stupid thing back! And tell Mistress Edina that I swear that she'll never receive another coin of mine ever again!" Ashantra screeched, an ample portion of her pent-up fury lacing her every word. Respecting your seamstress – a prerequisite for anyone who ever wanted to wear a stitch of decent clothing - was one thing, but a merchant or artisan who took your money and then allowed someone else to change your order was beneath contempt. Besides, she'd given very explicit, very carefully worded commands about that order, and all her caution had come to naught! She started stalking around the bed, ready to toss her pompous sister out on her regal behind.

Rianna obviously recognized the breaking flare in Ashantra's temper because she dropped the wadded silk and turned, hoisted her skirts, and absolutely ran from the bedroom. Ashantra had never actually harmed her sister, though they both knew she could if she chose to; and in her present mindset she was dangerously close to losing control. Ashantra slammed the door behind her and locked it, flinging the key away without bothering to aim at any place in particular. The resounding crash told her exactly what it had hit. Moaning, almost whining, she just put her hand to the doorframe and thumped her forehead against the door. Twice.

She'd done it now. There could be no more waiting. She'd meant to postpone, to delay until after her father had returned so she could spend just a little more time with her beloved daddy. Tonight had to be the night, and not just because she would catch the Dark One's own fury for breaking a good mirror.

The domestics were thorough in their cleaning - and in the case of her rooms, searching – of the palace chambers. But she'd found a small cubby, to small to fit herself into, directly behind the mirror installed in her vanity. It held her very last outfit, a quantity of her own personal coin that she'd secreted away; and her sword, which she'd had to recover personally from the refuse heap; no easy task, given how closely her mother had her watched. Replacing that mirror without noticing the cubby and its contents would have been utterly impossible.

Perhaps it was better this way. Her father was better at convincing her to change her mind than her mother was. Where her mother said do this, and expected it done; he at least discussed what he wanted her to do most of the time, and was usually willing to compromise if she decided to be stubborn, something that her mother was _never_ willing to do. She still remembered sitting on his knee as a child. He was the one who told her that she could do anything she put her mind to, and to never settle for anything less than the whole of her dreams. Of course, at the time he'd likely anticipated that her dreams would involve something less… perilous than what they'd turned out to be. But he was one of the only ones who hadn't let her announcement, or her mother's wishes, affect how he treated her.

He would have stopped her with two words: please stay.

Shucking her dressing robe, she slipped off her shift and just let it fall to the floor and kicked out of her slippers. She made up her mind and quickly dressed in her 'street clothes.' It was well past time to make one last break for it. If she failed… then she knew she'd break under her ruthless mother's relentless thumb long before she got another chance.

And before she broke, she really would throw herself off her balcony.

"Preparing to leave, my Lady?" Ashantra's former nurse and confidant, Elsa inquired just as she'd finished dressing, making Ashantra jump. She hadn't heard the woman enter, hadn't even heard the door unlock, which meant she must have come in through the dressing chamber. She snarled a curse under her breath as she spun around, her ill mood far from dispelled, even at the hope of being out of her gilded cage. A hope which she thought was about to be dashed unless she took one of the 'drastic' scenarios that were starting to play through her mind. She knew she could knock the woman out without causing her lasting injury, and her sheets would surely serve as bindings well enough… It disturbed her that the thought of simply killing Elsa even occurred to her. Just what sort of person was this stress on her molding her into?

The thin, greying woman's heels clicked on the tile floor as she strode quite calmly up to her former charge. "You needn't fear, Milady," she said softly as she walked. "I shan't betray your flight. In fact, I mean to help you."

Ashantra blinked, staring at the woman in surprise. "Why?" was all she asked, dumbfounded. Her anger slipped away like water down a river of disbelief. This was the head of the women who had, at her mother's order, helped to keep her locked in that palace. Now she was offering to help her escape it? Visions of betrayal played through her mind, and her grip on her sword tightened.

"I think it's reprehensible the way they try to force you into being something you simply aren't, dear girl," Elsa explained. "You're a grown woman, and as free of spirit as the heron to which you so stubbornly aspire. Your mother's attempts to turn you into some… run-of-the mill noblewoman are something I've been trying very hard to shield you from; though I sense you're very close to cracking under their pressure. I have known for some time about that cubby, you see, and have been the one ignoring it each day when I had ostensibly searched your chambers. In return for my help, I ask only one thing of you: remember that she does love you, young woman, just as I do and more so."

"If she loved me so she would accept me as I am…" Ashantra muttered, trailing off and wiping a tear from her eye. "Tell me, Elsa: why is the real Ashantra never enough for her?"

"She fears for your life, milady," Elsa counseled gently, touching Ashantra's shoulder consolingly. "Those who take up the sword are far more oft then not ended by it. And that only adds more fuel to her desire to protect you from the price you must pay for that heron, as well as the price you will pay should you fail in your quest."

"Had she said that in the beginning… or at all… perhaps I could have accepted her point of view," Ashantra conceded. "All I've ever wanted of my family is that they love and accept me for who I am, and support me in my calling, as I did for each of them before this nightmare started. But it's too late. She's… she's hurt me too much for me to forgive her. The lash would have been kinder than many of the things she's said and done to me. Blood and ashes, the block would have been kinder than some of it. You're right… I am close to giving in, or else going mad; I truly can't tell which. But I won't allow her to win like that. I won't allow her to break me."

She trusted Elsa, and she loved her mother, despite what she done - and had ordered done – to her, and the cruel words and the abject refusal to listen. She understood, at long last, that the woman's actions had been designed to protect Ashantra from herself. But as Elsa had often said, she was just as stubborn as her mother, and she couldn't allow herself to yield even an inch after all of that. She just wasn't built that way.

After all, they were both women of Manetheren born and raised. It was often said that the men of Manetheren could teach stones patience and give mules lessons in stubbornness. And the men were outright biddable compared to the women. Ashantra knew full well that at that moment her actions were dictated as much by her own stubbornness as by her sense of personal hurt and injustice combined; but that didn't change her plans a hair.

"I know, dearest. I know all of that. You're more than adequately educated and intelligent enough to make informed decisions. In some ways, you're far more capable than your sister will allow herself to be. It shall mean my job and my pension for this, when the truth is known, and I've no intent of lying any longer than will be necessary for me to be sure you've escaped. But I've lived a good life. You, young heron, need room to spread your wings and fly; room to breathe. You need to live your own life, and hopefully look back on it in your autumn years and think it a good one. She won't allow you that. She believes she is protecting your life, and refuses to hear a word that in so doing she is smothering your soul; and so I betray her for your sake. Wait until I return, my lady. I will ensure that the guards outside do not trouble you."

"You truly mean to help me?" Ashantra asked before Elsa could move away.

"I do, milady."

"Then promise me that if I fail, and find myself once more locked in my cage, that you will preform one service for me of my choosing," Ashantra pressed. "Promise it, Elsa."

"I promise. You need but name it, milady," Elsa told her with a sincere smile. "I will do whatever you ask."

There was no harm in it. If she refused, then she would refuse later just as well. The old woman just stared at her when she spoke, a look of horror replacing her smile as she shook her head with her eyes wide. "No… you would not…"

"If she breaks me, I am already gone."

She grabbed Ashantra's shoulders. "Anything but that. Please, I beg of you, do not ask that of me," she pleaded, abandoning proper decorum as tears were starting to well up in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Elsa. But I will be who I am, I or will not be," Ashantra told her. Light but she hated manipulating people. Even if she simply told the truth in order to accomplish it. But she knew that Elsa did love her, just as she'd said. Revealing the truth to her ensured that she would do her best to help her get away.

The greying woman nodded in understanding, but still looked shaken… and determined. "I… will do the best that I can to ensure that you do not fail, then," she agreed. Ashantra could clearly see the woman's fear. In some ways Elsa was more a mother to her than Atari was.

She buckled her sword belt over her coat, checking her coins as Elsa slipped out of the unlocked door. She waited, putting on her cloak and dreading the possibility that Elsa may have been setting her up as she sat down in her study to write. The letter she composed for her father was as much a contingency – in case her mother managed to pry it out of Elsa's hands or if she'd misplaced her trust – as it was an apology for leaving without saying goodbye in person. She made sure to mention the simple fact that she loved him, amending it in post-script to include her sister and mother as an afterthought.

_Let them chew on that_, she thought savagely as she signed the letter.

After what seemed an eternity, though likely it was less than an hour, Elsa poked her head back in and beckoned her out. True to her word, both her sentries were slumped against the base of the wall, snoring contentedly; but neither showed anything life-threatening when she stopped to check their vitals. Most likely it was a mild sleeping agent slipped into the glasses that lay on the floor, looking as if they'd tumbled out of their outstretched hands. A serving girl smiled at Ashantra and curtsied as she gathered these up and left. Elsa may have been betraying Lady al'Coratheren, but Ashantra doubted that her old nanny was prepared to do murder for her freedom.

"Give me a hand with these… damned heavy men," Elsa bade her. Together they moved the sentries into her room, one at the time, and locked her door. She found the act of locking her jailors in her cell deliciously ironic, and immensely satisfying.

"Go quickly, little heron," Elsa bade her once it was done, pushing her down the passage. "I will delay discovery of your absence as long as possible. Get to the second floor by way of the north stairwell in this spire, and then take the outer wall corridor on the south side until you reach the south stairwell in the northeastern spire. The domestics' entrance there is unguarded, and unbarred. I have seen to it. Go, fly!"

"Thank you, old friend," Ashantra replied, drawing a bitter smile out of the woman as she pressed the key into her hand. The terror was still there, though. She only hoped she had the chance to make it up to her some day. "There is a letter on my desk. I would thank you to allow the ink to dry and then remove it from my chambers, and give it to my father when he returns. Do not allow my mother to even learn of its existence until after he's read it."

"It will be done, my lady. May the Maker watch over you, and grant you the freedom you crave."

"Take care of yourself, and goodbye." She turned to leave without another word, drawing her hood up and pulling her cloak close about her.

Ashantra hadn't had any real training in stealth, but she was a small woman, clad to blend into the stonework, and smart enough to know when to stop and hold still, or when to duck behind something, and to keep to the shadows. And she knew every hall, stairway, and room in her home. But every time her boot scuffed against the floor or she bumped into something she held her breath and cringed in terror that someone would come to investigate the sound.

She made it to the proscribed stairwell, through the passageway, and to the second stairwell without being confronted by anyone. She slipped down, quietly taking each step and then pausing to listen, barely daring to breathe. She felt… alive! It was such an odd contradiction, hardly breathing and feeling that rush that let her know that her heart was beating, and quickly at that. She was surprised she wasn't sweating and almost giddy with anticipation. Soon she would be free of her cage. She could almost taste it.

And then, halfway between the ground floor and the second floor, just short of her freedom, she heard voices. There was nowhere to go, no place to hide. She was trapped! No! So close! Light burn whoever it was that was about to reveal her. She reversed direction, hoping she could make it back up to the next landing, there to find some place to hide, before she was discovered; and that whoever it was couldn't be bothered to look around too carefully.

"Lady Rianna's going to be avoiding the little silverpike for a while," one man's voice said, his voice thick with laughter. "I heard she said that she thought Lady Ashantra was going to knock her block off, and after she tried to get Lady Atari to ease up and everything. After what happened the last time, it's a wonder that she tried to step in again."

"I wonder how Mistress Edina's going to take her little tantrum," a second, also male, voice said curiously. "It's not like it's her fault that the order got stopped at the gate. But I hear the little beanpole brat swore on the Light and all that… who goes there?"

She heard them draw even as she squeaked, feeling the tips of two swords in her back, Ashantra had to think fast. "My mother has sent for me in the gardens," she yelped, trying for once to promote the helpless little girl image that her mother forced on others, as well as providing an excuse for her being out of her rooms.

"L-Lady Ashantra?" the first guard stuttered, withdrawing his blade. "Please, please forgive us, we…"

Feeling the second sword withdraw, Ashantra whirled around, keeping her cloak pulled tightly around herself – they'd never buy her bluff if they saw her in her preferred clothing - and adding a tremble to her voice just for effect. "Silverpike? Brat? Beanpole? And you dared draw steel on my person?" she demanded, taking a menacing step towards the guardsmen. They were armed, armored, at least half again if not twice her size, and much better trained than her mother had allowed of her; but they recoiled and stepped back in a very satisfactory manner, their eyes glued to her furious face. "Report to your Captain and tell him of your indiscretions. If you fail to do so I will have words with him myself! Well, why are you still standing there? Go!"

"Yes milady!" they said as one, jointly snapping off a single salute and going back downstairs. Ashantra couldn't bring herself to exhale until after the sound of their quick-stepping boots had receded out of hearing, and then she had to stifle a giggle of pure relief. They'd bought it… so caught up in her voice and her face that they didn't even notice that she was alone.

What was that drivel they'd been spouting that Rianna had tried to get their mother to back off? She'd believe it when she saw it happen with her own two eyes and not a moment before. Poking her head out of the door at the base of the stairwell, she glanced each way and slipped off towards the domestics' entrance. That Mistress Edina's courier had been detained, if not arrested, came as no surprise. She shouldn't have been so hasty making that oath. If the opportunity arose, she would apologize for it.

To her mild surprise, she didn't meet another living soul as she slipped down the hall and out through the unguarded door, just as Elsa had instructed and promised her. Every other attempt she'd made had been foiled long before she made it this far. The first had consisted of simply packing her bags and telling them that she was leaving, but the carriage had never come and the guards refused to allow her egress when she'd tried going afoot, citing her mother's orders. Those attempts had been frequent in the first year, as had attempts to write her aunt and beg for an intervention – until she learned that those letters weren't even leaving the palace - tapering off until she'd stopped altogether two months prior. Maybe her mother thought her broken and ready for bit and bridle? It mattered little. She was halfway free, out of the palace alone for the first time in years. Though it was late evening, people were still about the streets, most heading home. So she just… melted into the crowds.

Coratheren was built on a tall hill, a cliff really, on the south bank of the Tarendrelle; with a hundred-pace sheer fall separated the waterfront from the city proper. The city was laid out in three concentric circles. Each one, delineated by a wall, was smaller and higher than the next one. From the sky, if one could fly, it would look like the ripples of a pond, with the palace the smooth stone striking the water to cause the ripples, and that palace's spires the water splashing back upwards. There was one large gate, and a small number of small doors connecting each level to the one below it. And then there were a few 'back doors' that Ashantra's friends had shown her so long ago. She knew of a few the guards were still ignorant about.

On the street, there were few sure ways of avoiding attention, other than to do in approximation what everyone around was also doing. Once she was out of sight of the palace guard post, she started grumbling incoherently about unfair parents, presenting the image of a teenager on her way home.

Sometimes looking younger than you were had its advantages.

She did draw some gazes. A cloaked figure in the night with deep hood drawn drew the attention of anyone who opposed the Dark One. And everyone in Manetheren opposed the Shadow, at least in theory. She wasn't fool enough to believe that simply being Manetheri made someone immune to the hollow promises of the Dark One. But she was too small to be a shadowspawn so no one bothered her.

She knew she didn't have a chance at the gates. Her mother had seen to it that the whole of the Guard knew her visage, and they always checked under hoods anyway, on the offchance that a halfman would try to sneak in. So she just bypassed guard stations – she knew where they were – on her way to one of those 'back doors.'

[-]

That Rianna found sleep to be elusive that night was an understatement. After retiring that evening, a few hours after running from her little sister, she tossed and turned in her own bed, fearing her dreams even as the churning, crushing guilt kept her awake. All of Ashantra's suffering, all of Rianna's part in it… if she just admitted to her little secret, their mother's support would disappear, and maybe with Rianna and Ashantra presenting a unified front against their mother – a complete reversal of the situation – their father would finally intervene and put a cap on just how much Atari was able to vex her.

It wouldn't solve the problem. In fact, it would probably trigger an all-out war. But giving her mother another target might be enough to buy her little sister some breathing room. She already intended to take the blame for breaking Ashantra's mirror. She could… she _had_ to do at least that much for her little sister. Light send she had the strength to do that much at least.

Normally Rianna was very careful, very conscientious about her appearance. She had never - not since she was a child anyway - set one foot out of her apartments unless she was dressed fit for an appearance before one of those suitors that her mother still made a show of finding for her. Atari seemed to think that if she paraded enough men in front of Rianna her interests might spontaneously change, or perhaps that she just needed to find 'the right man' to catch her eye.

She finally understood that night, that none of that was possible.

She got out of bed, pulled on her robe, lit a candle and automatically picked up her brush; getting it halfway to her head, eyes already examining her reflection before she just tossed it down. Ashantra was far, far more important than her hair, and it was long past time she started acting like it. The embers she'd thought she wouldn't, couldn't allow to catch were now a blaze. She just had to get to her, to apologize, and explain, and to finally offer her the support that she should have been giving all along. She refused now, as she hadn't been able to at any time prior, to either label Ashantra's dream ridiculous, or her own preferences freakish. That was over and done with.

Skipping out on doing her hair or donning one of her fine dresses was unusual. In fact, it was unprecedented, but her resolve weakening as she drew near her sister's apartment wasn't. At least once a week for the last year she'd made this same resolution. Usually she would wake, dress and tend her appearance, get to the hallway just outside of Ashantra's apartments, and then just stand there dithering before finally walking away anywhere from ten minutes to an hour later.

Something was different as reached the corridor where Ashantra's rooms were kept, both inside of her and something in the environment. She just couldn't put her finger on what. She felt nervous, almost afraid, and paced in front of the door for a good five minutes. That was nothing unusual. No, it was something else. Finally, she mustered up the nerve to rap lightly on the door. That only served to make her feel stupid. She could have pounded on that door and Ashantra would never have heard it from her bed, let alone been awakened by it. So instead she pulled the small chain that was used for just this very purpose, located in arm's reach of the door. It would cause a small bell to ring – assuming Ashantra hadn't cut the clapper out again – directly over the bed, and that would eventually rouse her.

At one point, Atari had tried to wear down Ashantra's resistance by depriving her of sleep. For three days she'd had different domestics take turns pulling that chain all night, never realizing that Ashantra had simply silenced the bell in such a way that someone ringing it wouldn't know it. That revelation was the last time that she'd heard her sister laugh.

Eventually – after perhaps twenty minutes of periodically pulling that chain, the door did open, just a crack, revealing the thin face, and greying hair of their nanny, Elsa. She looked a little drawn, which only happened when she'd had a sleepless night. Rianna frowned as the feeling that something was wrong deepened.

"Forgive me, Lady Rianna, but Lady Ashantra is in no fit state to be seeing anyone at the moment," the old woman said through that crack.

"Is my sister… unwell?" Rianna asked. The feeling that something was missing had gone from a tickle at the back of her brain to a rock bouncing around inside her skull. But what was it?

"Unwell? Yes, yes, of course. She's quite ill, actually. Took a fever just as I was trying to calm her down after your uh… visit last night," the nanny said defensively, too defensively for Rianna's taste as she stood alone in the hall.

Alone? That's was it was. The watchdogs were missing. Granted it was late – or early, depending on how one looked at it – but they were diligent. Even if they'd taken ill, they would have found stand-ins, not simply left the door unwatched. Of course, it was possible that Elsa had simply dismissed them, if it was true that Ashantra had fallen sick. But her instincts said otherwise.

"She's gone, hasn't she?" Rianna asked sadly.

"Gone? Wherever would she go?" Elsa asked nervously, eyes darting to something in the room that Rianna couldn't see. "My Lady is simply ill. It's a horrid case of… uh…"

"Open this door, Elsa," Rianna commanded when it was clear the nurse was trying to invent a disease on the spot. And no one was more surprised than she was when the older woman obeyed, if after a moment's delay, allowing Rianna's entry.

There, piled under Ashantra's writing desk, were the two missing men. Rianna spared them no more attention than was required to ensure they were still breathing before she closed the door behind her. "You helped her?" she asked.

"And I'd do it again in a heartbeat," the cantankerous old maid declared loudly, borderline on hysterical as she waved a finger under Rianna's nose. "I love that young woman, and couldn't bear another moment of watching the two of you bleeding the spirit out of her, even if she hadn't said what she did I'd have done just the same! And don't you even think about running to your mother-"

"I have no intention of doing that," Rianna cut in, lowering herself into Ashantra's desk chair. She'd never seen anyone look quite so stunned as her old nanny did at that moment, and if it weren't for the fact of Ashantra's disappearance, she might have laughed at the look on her face. "I came here tonight to try and make up with her, to offer to support her as I should have done the moment this started, and if necessary to beg like a dog for her forgiveness. You don't know the hold mother has on me, Elsa. But I finally have the strength I need to break it."

"What… do you mean?" Elsa asked.

Elsa didn't look the slightest bit surprised or taken aback when Rianna spoke her secret frankly. "Mother's been using that allegedly shameful little secret to coerce me into helping her with Ashantra's 'problem.' But no more. No more."

"That's nothing to be ashamed of, dear girl," Elsa said kindly. "It's simply a part of who you are."

"I know that now. She's more ashamed about it than I ever was. She's the one who's afraid of it getting out. I can't believe I was so stupid as to never see that before. I was planning to confess it to Ashantra, and give her a weapon potent enough to make even our mother back off. But now… now she's free! I think I'll let her enjoy her freedom a little before I disturb her further; assuming of course that she makes it out of the city. I certainly won't do anything to hinder that effort."

"So you mean to simply… let her go?" Elsa asked, looking the very model of incredulity. "After all this time trying to hold her here?"

Rianna had to laugh at the older woman's reaction. "More than that," she replied when she finally stopped giggling. But she couldn't stop smiling. Assuming that she wasn't killed, maimed, raped, enslaved, kidnapped and ransomed back, or any combination of those or others besides, Ashantra was finally free. As she'd tried to tell her mother in the very first week of 'the unpleasantness,' it was Ashantra's life, and the risk was hers to take. Those possibilities certainly worried Rianna, but she had no intention of denying Ashantra's right to choose any longer. "Once the commotion dies down, I mean to go to father's study, find the names of every real blademaster in his contacts book, and write to them, promising them the full support of House al'Coratheren if they will find her, and teach her… without letting her see our hand, of course."

"Is that a promise you can keep, milady?"

"I'll see to it that our parents have no choice but to," Rianna declared. "If I swear on the honor of House al'Coratheren…"

"Then they'll be forced to choose between accusing you of treachery against your house, and backing you up," Elsa finished for her.

"Essentially forcing them to choose between letting my sister live her life, in finding a master to teach her; and losing us both when they're forced to punish me, still no closer to discovering where she is, to say nothing of the house's image," Rianna confirmed. "After what happened to my brother… yes, I remember him, don't act so surprised. After what happened to him, even mother will cower and cave at the thought of loosing both of the children she has left."

"She's always been able to stop you with a word," Elsa cautioned her.

"Right, now, the way I'm feeling, the Dark One himself would step lightly out of my way," Rianna declared boldly. And she did indeed feel it too. Her mother's hold on her was broken, and perhaps even reversed. "Elsa… do keep what I've told you close to the breast, would you?"

"I thought you didn't care who knows anymore."

"I don't," Rianna told Elsa. "She does."

The old woman's eyes lit up with understanding, and a smile spread across her lips. "And so you turn what was your weakness into hers instead," the matron said approvingly.

"So I do. You two, stay where you are."

The sentries had started to stir, one of them coming up on his hands and knees weakly. He blinked at Rianna's voice, looking up at her groggily. "Milady must be informed… Lady Ashantra… out of her rooms…"

"You've done your duty in informing me," Rianna stated simply. "I will inform my Lady mother. Rest for now." She wasn't lying, either. Her mother was coming to attend Ashantra in person this morning, and she would find Rianna there instead. After she'd come, and discovered Ashantra's absence, there was no point in keeping anything from her.

"Yes… yes milady Rianna," the man said, gratefully sinking back to the floor. Rianna paid them no further mind, raising her eyes from the man who had spoken to Ashantra's desk and immediately spotting the unstopped ink jar with the quill still resting in it.

"Did she leave a note?" Rianna asked. "I'm not so foolish as to believe she would spare effort or ink for mother or me, not after everything we put her through. But father, on the other hand…"

The old woman folded her hands in her sleeves, looking defensive and didn't answer.

"Keep it," Rianna bade her, wiping the quill and returning it to its place before putting the stopper back in the ink jar and closing the desk. "I'll know its contents within minutes of father reading it regardless. On Ashantra's order and mine, you aren't to even reveal that letter's existence to my mother until after it's in my father's hands."

"As my ladies command," Elsa replied with a wry chuckle and a curtsey. "I imagine I will be quite surprised when I return at the dawn to awaken my Lady Ashantra."

"Mother intends to attend it personally today," Rianna supplied. "She believes my sister is close to knuckling under."

"She told me as much just before she made her bid for freedom."

"You said she'd said something to you… was that it?"

The old nanny hesitated, her expression telling Rianna that it was something serious… something that terrified her old nurse. "She… made me swear, made me promise. I'll keep that promise, and no I'm not telling you what it was."

Rianna closed her eyes and just breathed for a moment, trying to ease the guilt in her heart that had just redoubled. "Elsa… Thank you for helping her," she said. A moment later she added, "Did she ask for poison, or a blade?"

"How did you-" the woman began, clicking her teeth as she bit off the question.

"The look in her eyes earlier," Rianna answered, remembering the near-madness in Ashantra's gaze, and the nightmares… the ones where Ashantra escaped, never to allow her blood kin near her again; as well as the ones where she simply killed herself. The latter had become disturbingly common of late, and her resolve to never allow their mother to control either of them again increased as much as her guilt. "I tried to provoke her temper on purpose when I saw her eyes. I wanted her to hit me, wanted her to punish me for what I've been doing to her. And I thought, maybe, if she did, that mother would finally take it as proof that she's pushing my sister in a direction none of us want her to go in." Of course, when she'd seen the pain and rage in Ashantra's eyes, she turned the coward.

"I've underestimated you, I think," Elsa replied after a brief pause in their conversation. "I told Ashantra that she was more capable than you'd allow yourself to be… please forgive that misjudgment."

"You weren't mistaken. I needed inspiration. I needed her to beat mother, and prove that it was possible. I needed her to win," Rianna replied, opening the door to Ashantra's bedroom and peeking at the sky beyond the balcony door. It was nearly dawn, the sky only just starting to brighten. "Do you think she's managed to slip out of the city yet?"

"She used to have many acquaintances among the lower castes, and one or two true friends that she would often speak of; without naming names, mind," Elsa replied. "If they are still her friends… then I shouldn't be surprised to learn that they've already bundled her away. There was one young man in particular that she spoke of… I couldn't tell listening to her if he had a piece of her affections or not. Likely she herself doesn't know for sure. But if she reaches him then she's as good as gone."

[-]

The sewers were the only place in all of Coratheren where one had a chance of moving between levels while avoiding all of the guard patrols and posts, though they did patrol even in the city's underbelly. But she knew their routes and schedules, despite the way domestics and watch clerks tried to keep that information out of her hands, or make sure that what she did get hold of was falsified or out of date. She could be light-fingered when she chose to, and the guards themselves _had _to have the accurate information.

She was almost as sickened by the fact that the smell of the sewers had become repulsive to her once more as she was by the smells themselves when she slipped through a sewer grate on the top tier and started making her way in a generally northward direction. She knew the labyrinth well enough to know which way was which way. There was a time when she wouldn't even have noticed the smell, much less retch as she did when it first hit her nose. Her mother's attempts at reworking her mind had indeed started to take root.

She didn't have to hide even once, though she did have to pause for a few moments here and there. Occasionally patrols did run a few moments - but never more than a minute - early or late on their rounds, delaying her on her way through the maze of waste management tunnels. But she was surprised that she didn't catch sight or sound of a single member of the Guild. She supposed they were laying low, or already where they wished to be for the evening. She only prayed that they hadn't been exterminated.

Ashantra exited the sewers, half-latching – a technique her friends used to make the sewer grates appear locked even though they weren't – the grate behind her. She was in the warehouse district and had just turned the first corner between her and the loading cranes when three men stepped out of the shadows, blocking her path. She instinctively double-backed, but found five more blocking the way back and to the side. Thieves, they must be. She fought down a surge of panic. Many in the Guild were her friends, or had been years ago. And none of them knew who she really was… she was relatively sure, if they remembered her at all.

"Your money, if you please," a familiar gruff voice said, between her and the docks. She knew who he was, and felt a surge of relief. "As well as any jewelry you have about your person."

Ashantra just turned back to the leader and put her hand on her hip, next to her sword, provoking a chuckle out of the collective thieves arrayed around her. "Please," the lead man said. "We are eight, and you are one. Even if you were a blademaster, you wouldn't escape unharmed."

"When shark finds out that you've wasted a perfectly good ambush on one of his own agents," she trailed off, shaking her head at them and waggling a finger. Gruff voiced man gave a start that she hoped was recognition, and his body language gave away his amusement, even in the darkness. "Or I can just go on about my business, and me and my partner won't have to report back to him…"

Chuckling, he stepped forward and offered his hand, which she took readily. "It's been years Ash. It's good to see you're still alive and finally free. Your bluff might've worked if you hadn't tried to play at being one of Shark's. You know he got the rope six months ago, right?"

"I've been out of contact, my friend Derek," Ashantra replied, almost able to make out the features of one of her best friends as he stood over her in the dim light. But she knew his eyes to be dark brown, his hair black and wavy, and his skin an olive tone. If she hadn't known he was Essenian, by blood anyway, she never would have guessed he wasn't Manetheri born. "My parents have been keeping me under lock and key ever since…"

"Since they caught you with Karl?" he supplied with a chuckle.

"Hey, I was old enough then, and I am now," she replied frankly, glad the shadows hid her blush and that her voice didn't warble at the declaration. Tough talk was one thing, but certain things anyone blushed at discussing.

"Yeah, yeah. Everyone knows you loved him. Too bad he wound up in a Trolloc's cook pot," he said.

She felt her heart freeze and let out a choking sound that wasn't faked at all, and had to fight back the tears as she reached up and leaned on his shoulder to keep herself from falling to the pavement. Oddly, the man's henchmen had all disappeared. "Sorry Ash. I… I thought you knew," he told her consolingly, pulling her into a comforting hug.

Rubbing her eyes, Ashantra shook her head and pushed away from his embrace, though it was a nice change for _someone _to recognize that she was in pain and offer her some sort of comfort. "I can't believe they never even told me…" she whispered. Actually she could, and it just added another reason to be angry with her mother to the list, even though _that_ interruption had been on her father's orders.

She'd found out after the fact that the man had known about her slumming most of, if not the whole time and had let her go about it, though he'd had her watched. She'd managed nearly a week without speaking to him after she'd found out about that. And he'd lasted almost as long not speaking to her – after a long shouting match – after he'd found out she'd almost gone to a man's bed out of wedlock and never mind the fact that she'd already chickened out when they'd been 'interrupted.' That 'conversation' had been the only time in her memory that he'd ever come close to truly insulting her.

"Look… I'm trying to get out of the city," she told Derek, letting the matter drop. "Do you know a way out that isn't…?"

Her friend interrupted her by taking hold of her wrist and pressing a small pouch of coins into her hand, and just pressed all the harder when she tried to reject them. "C'mon, your mother's made sure every ship captain that puts into port here knows better than to grant you passage; it's part of the 'welcome to Coratheren' speech now. You'll have to stow away with the cargo."

Following along, Ashantra tucked the coin pouch inside her belt and laid a hand on her friend's shoulder, "How? All the holds are searched-"

"Cargo coming in is searched. Cargo going out isn't, unless there's an alarm or an investigation. This ship, though, won't be searched either way. The captain has a… an understanding with the watch and never likes having his hold searched in any event, by guards or anyone else," he explained. "The ship leaves at dawn. Once you're in the hold, stay still, and stay quiet. Don't show yourself to him or any member of his crew under any circumstance.

"These guys aren't like us, Ash. We're good people who are just trying to do the best we can with the bad cards we were dealt. They're slime and gutter trash. Take the first chance you can to slip away. What were you planning? Diving into the river and letting it carry you outside the walls?"

"Something like that," she muttered embarrassedly in answer. She hadn't actually managed to figure out how to get out of the city yet. The docks had just been the natural choice.

"No matter; likely he'll bolt the second the alarm sounds."

"Alarm; why would an alarm sound?" she asked with a sinking feeling as his earlier words finally struck home.

"It'll come within a few minutes of when your parents… or maybe I should say, your mother notices that you're gone. Come on, Ash… or should I say Lady Ashantra? We've always known who you are. I knew after the first four words I heard you speak that you were noble born. You're always so careful in how you speak and pronounce words, and you _never_ slouch. And you're uh… rather distinctive in court. We just figured you came down because you wanted to get away from all that for a little while. And… I thought… maybe that you really thought of some of us as friends. So we played along. And since I know you're wondering: no. I've never let knowing who you are influence how I act towards you. I really am your friend… if you still want to be mine, that is."

He looked over his shoulder at her as they arrived at the loading platform, smiling in response to her grateful nod. Of course, he would understand. He usually understood her before she knew what she was about herself. That was a bizarre and somewhat bewildering thought, but she realized it was true. And what's more, she trusted him, despite the admission of his foreknowledge. Turning her attention to the platform, she saw a wooden stage jutting out at least a dozen paces over the edge of the cliff. The dock itself was completely empty, except for the two of them, and the crank-operated cranes which had had their winches and spools removed completely, safely locked away for the night.

"She could do much worse than you for a friend, I think," a calm, feminine voice came from directly behind them as they mounted the platform. "Or a mate, for that matter," her aunt added as Ashantra spun around to look at her. "Still, you _are_ a member of the thieves' guild…"

The Queen of Manetheren was a beautiful woman, of average height and well-proportioned, her black hair was as long as Rianna's, though it hadn't the slightest weave or curl in it. Though it was too dark yet for Ashantra to clearly see her eyes, she knew them to be a deep, dark brown and contain an ageless wisdom. Just as she knew that the shawl the woman wore across her shoulders had a white flame embroidered on it, with a blue fringe.

"My Queen," Derek declared, kneeling properly as Ashantra offered the deepest curtsey she could manage.

"Auntie," Ashantra breathed in disbelief. The woman wasn't alone, either. She had two women with her that she suspected were apprentices in the Power, if not full Sisters - though they didn't wear shawls, and full Sisters _always_ wore their shawls - a dozen halberd-men, and just one very dangerous-looking swordsman, all arrayed to block the only way off that platform alive.

"Dear niece," the Queen said, stepping up and not hesitating to hug Ashantra. "I must say you look to be far healthier, in body at least, than your mother would have me believe. Your lord father is already on his way back to the palace, but I had a hunch that I would encounter you if I lingered here but a little while."

"My father? I thought he was in Jara'copan visiting my greatmother."

"Oh, no, little heron. That is merely what he wished your mother to believe, and telling you the truth might well have led to her discovering it as well. He came to speak to me, and to enlighten me on… certain intolerable events regarding your recent treatment. That is one of the subjects upon which I wish to discourse with you. Tell me, is this young man an… associate of yours?"

"Derek is my friend," Ashantra replied. "And I trust him with my life. I would ask that you do nothing to inconvenience him."

"Do you claim him as an agent, perhaps? Or a suitor, hmm?" her aunt asked with a note of teasing.

"Is this… truly the place to hold such a discussion?" Ashantra asked in return, feeling her cheeks heat. Why did that make her uncomfortable? Derek _was_ her friend, nothing more.

"As you would have it," her Aunt Sorella conceded. "I have other business with your mother this night, dear niece, but I am now certain that not one of my letters has reached you. As such, I now extend an invitation to you in person: would you care to join me in the Mountain Home, or at the very least, in my cabin aboard my ship, and discourse upon your chosen profession?"

"You're not planning to dissuade me from it, are you?" Ashantra asked defensively.

"I had not remembered you being either so rude, or so suspicious, dear niece. Truly your mother's treatment has vexed you greatly. No, I have no intention of forcibly detaining you as she has, though I do desire to speak to you about it. Make no mistake, this is an invitation, from aunt to niece; not a warrant. If you prefer I could simply escort you to the gates to ensure that your departure is not impeded, as it is now obvious that it has been for some time. Which do you choose?"

"I am sorry, Aunt. It is only that… every time…" Ashantra began despondently.

"She has ground that fine spirit of yours down," the Queen stated quietly when Ashantra cut off, hooking her chin and lifting her face. She hadn't even realized she'd lowered her eyes until her aunt prompted her to lift them again. "I have seen recently-freed slaves who have shown more than you are at this moment. Despair not. I will see to it that she is… adequately reminded of her limitations."

"Please aunt… I wouldn't see her harmed overmuch, despite of everything." Ashantra amazed herself at the fact that she could still defend her mother after everything. She should have been calling for blood-rights, given what Atari had done to her.

"That is one of many things I have always admired in you, Ashantra. Once you've accepted someone into your heart, it is easier to uproot an ancient oak with one's bare hands than to remove them from it," Sorella supplied with a small smile. "Very well. If you, the victim, wish leniency, I will grant it, at least on that charge. Be aware that there are others levied against her this night in which I may not be able to be so merciful. But come, we should get you safely aboard my ship, where she will have no ability to reach you."

"You have my thanks, dear Aunt Sorella. May I ask another boon?"

"You need but name it."

"There is a tailor's shop in the middle-east district that I would visit before our departure from this city: Madame Edina's Seamstress."

"As you wish, though I should suggest that we await the morning. Dawn is perhaps three hours away, and I have an overbearing noblewoman's bubble to burst. I make you a counter-proposal. Since I have business in the city in any event, I would suggest that I accompany you to my ship, whereupon you will spend at least six hours in obviously much-needed sleep. After I pay my visit to the palace, I will personally visit this tailor's shop and pick up your order for you. Would that be acceptable?"

"How'd you know…"

"That you had an order with her? It is rather obvious, given the threadbare state of your coat, why you should be desirous of visiting a very particular shop. Come now, I know you're more intelligent than that. Or has she been attempting to dull your wits as well?" The Queen asked, ending with a very sharp tone. "Forgive me, I meant that as an inquiry into what she has been doing to you, not as an affront to your faculties. The longer we stand here, with you giving evidences against her in your manner as well as your responses, the more… displeased with the Lady Atari I become."

Ashantra felt her lips twitch slightly, both at the apology and the prospect of her mother being punished. "Your apology is accepted, my Lady Aunt, as is your gracious offer of hospitality."

"Coming?" her aunt asked her friend, who was still kneeling, keeping his voice out of their discussion.

"Me, Your Majesty?" Derek asked.

"You, I think, would serve and protect her as well as my warder protects me. And you would be a reminder of the things about her home that she enjoyed. Or perhaps I overstep myself, niece? Do you wish your… friend… to accompany you on your travels? I promise clemency for him for all crimes he has committed within Manetheren to date if the both of you agree to this arrangement."

"If he's willing, I can think of no one I'd rather have at my side for this trip," Ashantra said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Come, Derek… stand up."

Rising, Derek bowed to each of them in turn. "If you would have me, My Lady Ashantra, I would stand by your side for as long as you need or want me there," he said in a tone that sounded almost like a proposal.

He made her really smile for the first time in months, and some of the emotional baggage she'd been lugging on her back eased off. Not another word was spoken as she joined her aunt's entourage, making their way down the narrow, winding path that led down to the wharf. The guards patrolling the waterfront took one look at Ashantra, and moved to block her, then took one look at her aunt, and backed down, going about their business.

"You will forget that you laid eyes on Lady Ashantra this night," Sorella commanded the men who did this, who saluted in reply and inquired why they might have seen her when she was at the palace so far as they knew. Most of them actually seemed relieved about it. "And the rest of you will forget that they attempted to interfere with her passage."

"Yes my queen," her own guards stated in unison each time this happened.

Ashantra knew her aunt was up to something. Perhaps she really did mean to detain her, after all. No, that was unlikely. If she wanted Ashantra held, she would simply hand her back to her mother. She needed to shake this paranoia before she started suspecting everyone - herself included - of trying to imprison her. She had to trust her aunt. If her queen would turn against her, then she had no hope left. Likely she just wanted Atari to be unaware of where her daughter was, and thus unable to send anyone to drag her back home, should Ashantra choose to leave her aunt's hospitality.

That was her hope, anyway.

Sorella and Derek boarded with her, and her aunt gave her another tight hug. "We will have to work hard to undo the damage your mother did to you," the Queen told her. "You may retire in my cabin for the remainder of the night, and on the morrow your uncle will begin your education in the art of the blade, if you still wish it."

"Of course I wish it. Thank you, Your Majesty," Ashantra told her aunt. "Thank you for everything."

"I haven't even begun yet, niece. But you are welcome."

For the second time that night she found herself dressed for bed, quite alone in the Queen's well-appointed cabin, but she was too excited to sleep properly, tossing and turning for a little while before rising again and putting on a robe. Perhaps a nice chat with her dear friend would calm her down, she thought.

Of course, she didn't know where he was being put up – likely on deck for the night – but the ship wasn't _that_ large. She had just thought that it would be no trouble finding him when she pulled the door open and he tumbled in backwards with a yelp, complete with a chair that he'd been sitting in.

"What… are… you doing?" she asked him when he'd finally gotten out of the chair he'd been sitting in, which was now positioned on its back.

"I was… sleeping in front of the door," he admitted. "Her Majesty did say I was here to protect you, amongst other… hey, why are you laughing? Stop that! Cut it out, Ash!"

She hadn't laughed in far too long, and couldn't stop herself. She tried biting her fist to stifle it, but that did nothing for her, especially as he continued to protest. Finally, her sides aching, she managed to right herself. "I'm sorry, Derek," she apologized, still giggling. "I wasn't laughing at you, truly. I think… I think I just needed to laugh. You've no idea what it was like in there."

He shook his head and let out a little chuckle of his own. "I guess I was being a touch foolish too," he replied with a smile.

"Would you like to come in?" she asked with a smile of her own. Then she blushed as she realized what it sounded like she meant and quickly tried to atone for it. "I haven't spoken to anyone that wasn't in my mother's purse for so long… I just want to have a decent conversation."

"Sure. I'll just leave the door open so that they know we're not uh… never mind," he replied with his own blush. "So how up to speed are you on what's been going on with 'the little people' since your caging?"

"Not at all," she replied, letting his insinuation pass. Her aunt seemed to see something between them that wasn't there, and there was no reason to put further fuel on the fire. "I tried getting notes out to the dead drop sites, but I don't think any of them even got out of the palace."

They sat down at the small table where Her Majesty presumably took her meals, chatting back and forth. After a very short while though she realized her head was leaning on her hand. She was asleep before she knew it.

[-]

Rianna and Elsa both started when a soft knock came at the door, and then a hard banging. Elsa moved quickly to answer it as Rianna set the chair between the unconscious guards and the portal, resuming her seat in it to block the view.

"Where is she?" her mother demanded, sweeping into the room as she all but pushed Elsa out of the way. One glance at Rianna, and what she was trying vainly to block, told the woman all she needed to know, though she still wrenched open the bedroom door before letting out a scream. "You!" she shouted, turning on Rianna, "How long have you been here?"

"Nearly two hours," Rianna replied leisurely.

"And why didn't you come to me immediately? Her bed hasn't been slept in; she must have been missing for hours now, perhaps even long enough to escape the city!"

"That's exactly why I've done as I have, _mother_," Rianna replied, standing up.

"You… You betray her?" Atari whispered in disbelief.

"No. You betray her, and I no longer will," Rianna retorted.

"You dare speak to me that way? Have you forgotten…"

"No, I haven't forgotten," Rianna cut across her mother for the first time in years. The woman froze in a very satisfying way at her daughter's boldness. "In fact, I've figured a few things out. There will be no dispatch of pursuit, no orders to drag my sister back here against her wishes, will there mother?"

"Of course there will! She needs to learn…"

"No. You need to learn. She's no child, and her dream no whim. I refuse to help you against her again! I don't care if anyone knows anymore my 'secret' anymore. You have no hold over me any longer. You _will _send word to the gates, rescinding your orders that are preventing her from leaving this city, assuming she hasn't already. You see, I don't care if anyone knows. But you do, don't you?"

Atari paled with Rianna's threat, though just for a moment. "_Guards!_ Attend me! Lady Ashantra is in danger," Atari shouted out. Moderating her voice, she smiled in a sickeningly sweet way at her daughter, her composure once more in place. "You've found one lever to pull, daughter. I admit that and applaud you for it. But you've nowhere near enough clout to _give me_ _orders_, Rianna. You've more backbone than I'd supposed. But I will deal with that _after_ your sister is once again…"

"After my niece is once again what?" another woman's voice asked from the doorway. All eyes immediately turned towards the Queen of Manetheren as she swept into the chamber, which was getting rather crowded.

"Your… Your Majesty," Atari stuttered as Rianna curtsied deeply to her. "To what do we owe the honor of this visit?"

"Certain individuals have been telling me some rather distressing things about my favorite niece," the Queen informed her as she stepped further into the chamber, for all appearances her focus entirely on Atari, a focus like a lion eyeing a deer. "And about how you are treating her. As I had already scheduled a visit to inquire in person on another matter, as well as to why someone – I suspect it was Rianna, though on your orders - is forging her signature on letters addressed to me I decided to rearrange my schedule to expedite that visit. You see, I have five times in two years written and invited her to stay at my palace in the Mountain Home, to discourse with her on her life's calling. Tell me, Lady Atari… has Ashantra even been receiving my letters?"

"Ashantra has been… indisposed," Atari replied carefully.

"You mean she's been imprisoned, her mail screened, her property tampered with, her wishes ignored, and that she has been subjected to varying forms of verbal and mental abuse," the queen supplied, barely restrained rage lacing her voice. It was not a question. "So it is true then."

Atari raised her chin stubbornly. "With all due respect, your majesty, you have even less right than Rianna to criticize the way I choose to handle _my_ child."

"Were she a child any longer, I would agree," Queen Sorella countered, her voice now perfectly calm as she folded her hands before her stomach as if she were simply stopping by for a pleasant chat. Her eyes told a completely different story. "As she is legally of age, however, and I know from my own interactions with her that she is both old enough, and mature enough to think for herself and make rational decisions, I am well within my rights to intercede in the matter of one of my citizens being imprisoned in this manner. Rest assured, your ladyship, that the severity of that intercession is entirely contingent upon the level of cooperation you choose to extend. In a case such as this I should prefer to speak to her first, but alas, she doesn't seem to be in her apartments, by the state of her bedroom that I can see from here. Tell me, Lady Atari, where is my niece?"

"I… I do not know," Atari admitted despondently. "I came to speak to her not a few minutes before Your Majesty arrived, and found that she is gone."

"Gone?" Lord al'Coratheren demanded as he, too, stepped into the room. "What do you mean, 'gone'? Where is my daughter, Atari?" The old nursemaid stepped up quickly and pulled a scroll from her sleeve, handing it to him before stepping towards the door. "Elsa, wait here."

"I do not know, husband! I haven't even had the opportunity to organize the guard… where are they? I know I screamed for them…" she answered as he unrolled the scroll and Elsa froze where she was. He read it quickly and then simply handed it to his sister, looking ill.

"Forgive me, I took the liberty of telling your men to stand down," the Queen said before reading, as if ordering other peoples' armsmen around were an everyday occurrence. In fact, it may very well have been for her. Rianna understood her father's reaction; she could guess at the letter's contents even without reading it, but her aunt's response was incomprehensible. "Oh, clever girl," the Queen commented with a laugh as she handed the document to her.

Rianna read, frowning all the more as she did.

_Dearest Father,_

_I am sorry that I have to tell you like this. I would have preferred to tell you in person, but my hand was forced earlier this evening. Was it happenstance that I accidentally broke the mirror behind which the last of my things were hidden, or fate? I cannot decide and cannot spare the time now to dwell upon it. Fate or happenstance, if I have succeeded tonight then I will have been long gone from the city by the time you read this. _

_Long ago, you told me to never settle for anything less than my dreams, that my life was mine to make of what I will. I have chosen; and she has forbidden, taking unconscionable and outright illegal lengths to keep me from that choice; and so I slip away in the night. My method of egress from the palace, I will keep to myself. However, you may find that certain individuals will have caused quite the commotion at the Aridhol Gate – or near enough to it that those guards' attentions were required to be diverted - on the morning after my __departure__ escape. Enough commotion that one small woman may have slipped by them unnoticed. I ask that you treat them mercifully, as their actions were at my behest, and I take full responsibility._

_I apologize for the disruption to __our__ your home and city, but I can abide no more. Know that I will always be your daughter, and I will always love you. Goodbye, father. May we meet again after I've had a chance to live._

_Your loving daughter,_

_Ashantra_

_p.s. the 'I will always love you' does also include my sister and mother._

Rianna couldn't believe it, and read the letter again before handing it off to their mother. She'd thought her little sister was hopeless at the Game. But this… she wanted them to find that, though perhaps a not when they had. But which way did she want them to jump? It left enough room to be interpreted numerous ways, the meanest, most obvious being that she intended to leave exactly the way she said…

Even if it meant precisely what it said, that document was evidence that she could play, and simply chose not to… usually. The crossed out 'our' was a deliberate declaration that she no longer considered Coratheren to be her home, putting the word 'escape' on paper would have damned Atari – had Ashantra named her – if any Magistrate had gotten his hands on the document; and that post script was a full-armed slap aimed straight at her and her mother, going out of her way to point out what she'd already implied… even though she knew she deserved that and much worse, it still hurt.

"But… there's been no such disturbance yet," Atari declared after reading. "This means that she's still in the city! We should reinforce the gates…" she trailed off at the knowing smirk that sprouted on Rianna's face, mirrored by the Queen's. "What?"

"Nothing, mother," Rianna said quite calmly. "Perhaps you should see to the reinforcing of the gates, as you say."

Atari frowned, but handed the letter back to Rianna and stepped lightly out of the room. She had a good look at her mother's face, and she could tell that the woman was thinking, hard and fast. When she was gone, the Servant of All gestured at the door and turned to Rianna.

"Your mother seriously underestimates your sister," the Queen informed her, plucking the letter out of her hand. "She anticipated Mistress Elsa's inability to keep this missive out of her hands, or perhaps expected her to simply give it to her jailor…" Elsa pursed her lips at that, but stayed quiet. "As such, she left not only notice of her route out of the city, but a timeframe and a rather precise outline of a plot to get through the barrier as well, inviting her to transfer guards from elsewhere – likely the Manetheren Gate - at a specific time, to a gate she never had any intention of being at, unless I am the one who is overestimating my niece." Rianna noted her aunt's slip. She'd spoken that last part just a little faster than the rest…

Lord al'Coratheren looked thoughtful. "And what do you expect she will do? Will she try at the Manetheren gate?"

"Your thoughts, niece?" the Queen asked Rianna.

"Ashantra knows how our mother thinks," Rianna explained. "She doesn't intend to try any gate at all, but rather simply wants mother caught up watching them all morning and trying to figure out which gate is a feint and which one is the actual escape. They're _all_ feints. Either she has no intention of leaving the city at all - which I seriously doubt - or she's leaving by boat. She isn't stupid enough to try hiding in the city until the heat dies down, and then slip out. That would just get her caught and…"

"And what?" Sorella asked when Rianna cut off. "And what, niece?"

"Answer your aunt, daughter," her father said sternly when she didn't.

"I… I don't know how I know, aunt. I just do. If our mother succeeds in breaking Ashantra's spirit fully, my sister will die, literally… most likely by her own hand, and within a week of it happening," Rianna explained.

Her father just stared at her for a long moment. "And still you helped your mother in this… pursuit, even though you knew this?" he demanded, both face and voice betraying profound fury.

"I thought I had no choice!" Rianna protested, on the verge of shame-filled tears as she lowered herself into the chair again. "I was… I was wrong, father. I wasn't completely sure until just a little while ago. I thought that they were only nightmares!"

"Your dreams?" Sorella asked curiously.

Rianna just nodded and tried to compose herself.

"We will address that at a later time," the Queen told her. "Your thoughts on how she intends to escape the city?"

"I have no idea how much coin she has on her, but it could very well be enough to bribe a captain and still pay for passage."

"No amount of coin will pay for her passage out of the city," her father said sadly. "At Atari's order, every ship that docks here is given the same speech about denying her passage, and their captains forced to memorize a description of her likeness."

"Lady Atari has been most thorough in crafting her mesh, my lord brother," the Queen said when Lord al'Coratheren fell quiet in contemplation. "However I would point out a simple fact. No matter how thick your mesh is, one or two mosquitos will always find a way to bite. Not only does she underestimate Ashantra, she fails to understand fairly much any aspect of the woman. Ashantra _needs_ to escape her clutches, and so she will."

"What does _that_ mean?" Lord al'Coratheren asked with a confused frown.

"It is business of the Servants, little brother. I should not have even said it. I could not, and would not, enlighten someone on that statement's meaning who has not been a full Sister of the Blue for at least ten years. Come, we must decide what to do with the information we have. Send for your wife, my lord brother."

"Elsa?" he said softly.

"Return once you've fetched her," the Queen bade the nanny.

The old nurse stepped outside, and immediately came back in, the aforementioned Lady on her heels.

"What are your intentions towards your daughter at this moment, Lady Atari?" the Queen asked, hardly seeming surprised at Atari's proximity.

"I will have her found, and brought back here," Atari replied simply.

"Drag her back here by her hair, then?" Her Majesty inquired with a flat stare.

"Your Majesty did state that she wished to speak to her," Atari replied smoothly.

"Do you not believe that her free will has been curtailed long enough?" the Queen countered. "There is no charge against her, and she is long since old enough that you've no right to administer the punishments you have."

"I was only thinking of Your Majesty's expressed wishes."

"You wish to protect your daughter," the Queen stated.

"Of course," Atari answered as if she'd heard a question.

"Then let her go."

"That is contradictory, Your Majesty…"

"No, it isn't," the Aes Sedai replied cryptically. "I would speak with Ashantra at her convenience. Understand that it is an invitation, not a subpoena." She turned her attention to Elsa. "Lady Ashantra expressed certain wishes to you before she made her bid for freedom, didn't she?"

"Only one, Your Majesty," Elsa replied after a moment's hesitation.

"And what was that wish?"

"Please… don't make me tell…" Elsa begged plaintively. Even Atari noticed the despondency in the woman's voice, from the look on her face. "I don't like to think of what it was, let alone how she tricked me into promising it."

"Please, this is vital information."

Elsa hesitated again, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath before sighing. "She bade me… if she was recaptured – that is the exact word she used – that… that she would find, mixed into her meal the very next night… powdered peach pit…"

"You agreed to poison my daughter?" Atari screamed.

"I didn't know that's what she was going to ask for!" Elsa defended herself. "I thought she was just going to ask me to help her escape again."

"But you were going to do it," Lord al'Coratheren accused. Turning to his wife, he took a menacing half-step towards her. "And you! You drove her to make such a request!"

"Silence," the Queen cut in without taking her eyes off of her second-sister. The Lord simply froze in mid-step, his foot just hovering off the floor and his hands outstretched. "I trust now, Lady Atari, that you understand the true depth of your crimes against Ashantra?"

"All I have done has been in her best interest!" Rianna's mother, now hysterical herself, protested. "Please, Your Majesty… I just wanted to protect her…"

What little trace of good humor there was left the deceptively older woman's face. And when she spoke it was with a cold finality that left absolutely no room for argument. "It _is_ her decision, and she has chosen. I warn you now, I will know within days if not minutes if you attempt to illegally restrain her again. Do not test my patience with this matter further."

"Yes… yes my Queen," Atari replied, _finally_ backing down.

Turning to her brother, the queen added, "I am also ordering, on the authority of my throne and crown, that all inordinate restrictions of her movements within this city be permanently lifted. See to it."

"At once, my queen," the lord replied without moving that furious stare away from his wife. At least he lowered his arms and stood up straight, tugging his coat so that it rested properly on him.

"Now, Lady Atari, the other reason for my visit," the Queen said, turning to the lady of the house again as the lord left. "Why are my Red Sisters pestering me to 'allow' them to 'reopen' their testing center in Coratheren?"

The Red Ajah of the White Tower was the largest of all the Ajahs, or so popular rumors said. Those same rumors said that they numbered nearly half the Aes Sedai order in their ranks. The Reds were officially responsible for finding young women with the Spark, in-born or not, and conducting them to the Tower for training; though officially they were supposed to wait for the ones that fell under the 'or not' category to ask. There were murky rumors to the effect that they sometimes skipped that formality, though never spoken in earshot of any Servant. That was the purpose behind their testing centers; though given the fact that they were nearly everywhere, they were usually also the ones who caught the poor, misguided fools who decided that the Taint was gone, as well as the unfortunate men who knew better but couldn't help but channel.

"Well, you see… Your Majesty…" Atari began. The Queen merely leaned towards her slightly and took a very small step forward, seeming to grow just a little taller as her face took on a graver expression. "She… said… at one point that she was going to… seek the intervention of the Tower…"

Taking a full step towards her second-sister, the Queen was suddenly four times her normal height, her hair easily brushing the ceiling as she towered over the Countess. "YOU DARE INTERFERE WITH THE BUSINESS OF THE TOWER NOW, AS WELL?" the queen demanded, her voice booming off the walls and seeming to come from everywhere at once. Rianna was very, very glad that she was already seated.

"My Queen…"

"SILENCE!" the word bounced around the chamber so violently that some dust shook itself free of the ceiling. "AS QUEEN OF MANETHEREN I AM ABLE TO EXERCISE DISCRESCION AND OVERLOOK YOUR _IMPRISONMENT _OF YOUR DAUGHTER. AS A SERVANT I AM COMPELLED TO REPORT YOUR INTERFERANCE WITH THE TOWER'S AFFAIRS TO THE HALL. YOU WILL BE FORTUNATE INDEED IF THE AMYRLIN CHOOSES TO ALLOW YOU TO RETAIN YOUR HEAD, LET ALONE YOUR POSITION."

Falling to her knees, Atari pressed her nose to the stone before the gigantic Servant's feet even as Rianna clapped her hands over her ears in a vain effort to stifle the sound. "Please, please I beg you to forgive me my indiscretions!"

"WHAT MAKES YOU WORTHY OF SUCH FORGIVENESS AFTER YOUR CRIMES?"

"I… I swear on the Light, and my hope of salvation and rebirth… I will never interfere with the Tower again…" Atari swore loudly, plaintively.

"AND?" the Queen's voice pressed.

"And?" Atari echoed before continuing, "And I further swear on the same oath that I will do my best to learn to accept my daughters as they are instead of trying to bend their natures to my will."

"See to it that you do," the Servant, suddenly once again her normal size and volume, stated. "And with those oaths in mind, I will choose to report to the Reds – there's no need to involve the Hall or the Amyrlin if there was no deliberate interference - that a mistake was made and has now been corrected, and that Sisters will once again be welcomed in every part of the city. Won't they?"

"Yes… yes, Honored Servant, of course they will," Atari answered.

"With your permission, aunt…" Rianna began, sensing her opening.

"You wish to go to Ashantra and attempt to reconcile your differences?" the Queen inquired. "I should think that she would enjoy some time alone, or with her friends before being reminded of her captivity, and that it would be a very good idea for her to engage in some hard-paced training – the better to vent what I am sure is a vast stock of anger over her imprisonment – before you seek her out. I realize your desire to heal the rift your errant mother forced between you and your estranged sibling, and I think it a good idea; only… wait a time first. That is my counsel. You do not need my permission to proceed as you choose, however, only hers."

"Perhaps… perhaps a letter, then," Rianna said, more to herself than to anyone else. "She will likely think it a trick, especially if I ask for a reply or a meeting… and then there's the issue of where to send it…" The last was a cast of a fishing line to confirm her suspicion.

"Make no request of her at all, except for her forgiveness. Simply render your apologies and explanations, and make it clear that you will not seek her out directly," the Queen advised. "As to the 'where' of it… Give me the missive. I will have her found, and when I become aware of her precise location, I will see that she gets it."

_Just how precise are you speaking of?_ Rianna wondered.

"Thank you, aunt," she said respectfully. She wasn't aware of anything stopping her aunt from lying; and she'd never once caught an untrue word out of the Servant's mouth. But it truly wouldn't have surprised her to learn that the ship Ashantra managed to 'escape' on was bound for the city of Manetheren, flying the Flame over the Eagle. But there was absolutely no way she would even ask in her mother's earshot.

"You are most welcome, niece."


End file.
